We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Newman. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Alex below.

Newman, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

I think it’s the same as any other skill or trade. To me it came down to a lot of practice. I feel like as far as lyrics and having something to say, that has always been easy for me when it comes to rapping. I imagine that it would be for lost people. On the surface it’s not much different from holding a conversation, which we all naturally do, just in song form. I think the challenge came in translating that on record. Being able to record a verse or deliver a line that’s compelling is something that has taken me some time to figure out. Especially in the beginning, I think it’s easy to get caught up in all the things you have to think about while recording. Whether that’s actually reading your words if you don’t have them memorized, and then memorizing the flow you need in order to line it up with music, and doing it all in real time can be work. So early on it was breaking out of that monotone delivery, making the feeling match up with the actual words. At this stage I don’t like most songs or verses with a monotone style delivery because it comes off as boring to me and lacking in passion.

I vividly remember my first summer coming back to Raleigh from college. I recorded pretty much every single day of that summer, and looking back, it never felt like it was work or that I was even practicing. It was just something I felt called to do and conditioned myself to do, so I remember feeling much more competent as an artist after that dummer. There was a before and after.

To speed up the process, I could’ve done more studying on how to better use GarageBand at the time, or have spent more time on learning to make beats. But I was so hellbent on recording raps that nothing else mattered, and I don’t regret that.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m a recording artist, a hip-hop artist from Raleigh, NC. One day my brother picked up a performance mic from Target for a school project and we started messing around with Audacity for fun. I always had a deep love for music, and my first love was sports. I played around with music at the end of high schoool, and it wasn’t until I didn’t have a career path forward with sports anymore that I spent more time working on music. I feel all of my passion for sports was transmuted into the music I make, and it’s been one of the most rewarding journeys of my life thus far to be considered a recording artist.

I’m proud that music has given me an outlet to discover myself and make sense of my world in a way that feels like I’m making movies like a director would. I’m proud that I have the opportunity to touch people with my ideas. I remember when someone told me their good friend had passed away, and on the road trip they had to visit their funeral, one of my songs was the only thing keeping them sane on that drive. I’ve had other artists tell me my music inspires them. I’ve traveled to other cities for live shows and done radio performances. I still have a long way to go, but when I wrote my first verse I never would have imagined connecting with people that way, and never intended anything outside of self therapy when I started. So I’m grateful to continue to develop.

At the same time at this point, through my work, through my obsession, through my passion for what I do, I’ve earned the respect of myself to build a legacy and go down as one of the best to ever do what I do. I’m blessed to build a community with my family called Ten Steps Ahead which our aim is to be a vehicle for creative expression across many mediums and really build something dope, musically and beyond. I want people reading this to know that as a student of not only hip-hop but music period, that my ambitions are as high as humanly possible and I owe it to myself and my supporters to push the boundaries with my creativity to build and be apart of something worth supporting.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Give more empathy. I’m my biggest critique for sure, so I love and understand the critical side of art of all kinds. There’s an art to that too. Just like talking about and analyzing sports. But when it comes to certain artists in music that have reached a different level of fame, often times I do feel for them when it comes to how quickly they can be turned on if the audience is not in love with a new offering within the first hour of a release. I know first hand the hours, sometimes years that go into a record on all sides. The countless takes, the art direction, the mixing etc, not to mention the actual life experiences that have to be lived in order to come up with some of these stories. For it to be called trash or mid within an hour after it’s put out, when it’s near impossible to have fully taken in that body of work on a truly all encompassing level seems a bit unfair. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for calling out something as trash if it’s trash, but sometimes these takes come as mindless opinion and groupthink. Especially for artists who have already provided soundtracks to many of our most important moments in life, it’s unfortunate how quick the crowd can turn on an artist, who atleast in my option, may have earned atleast a little time and grace before judgement is passed on their new work. But that’s the nature of the game. I think it’s also important to say I believe that respect is earned at the same time.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Just making a song. I make my songs in drafts or versions. So it’s always interesting to finally hit save and being able to reflect on everything that came together to form a complete idea. Whether it ever goes anywhere or ends up as a music video, there’s so many layers of the process I’ve come to love and appreciate. I see them as audio pictures. They get attached to certain time periods in my life and I can remember what I was doing the day they were made or what was going on in my life around that time. Then there’s being able to actually perform these ideas live with people, the making of the actual music before any lyrics are created etc.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.Newman10steps.com
• Instagram: @newman10steps
• Twitter: @newman10steps
• Youtube: https://youtu.be/PKMZ6WORFHA

Image Credits
Rory Sullivan